Sara is the short-name used these days for Saartjie Baartman, a Khoisan slave woman who at the tender age of 20 was taken from Cape Town to London and then on to Paris to be displayed naked in their streets and at their circuses like an animal her European audiences viewed her to be. Her story is a tearful and moving one. It is at once the story of an everyday woman, a human being, one of us, treated in the most grotesque ways, used as "scientific proof" of "European white superiority."

But it is also a story about the more widespread "social, political, scientific and philosophical assumptions which transformed one young African woman into a representation of savage sexuality and racial inferiority." Finally, her story is one that provokes us to look in some detail at the power of imagery to form opinions, and the way such power has been employed to depict people of color, especially women of color.

Since this story was published in February 2002, Sara's remains have been returned to South Africa. Saartjie Baartman's skeleton and bottled organs -- long stored at a French natural history museum -- were turned over to South African officials on April 29 at a ceremony in Paris, the culmination of years of requests by countrymen who wanted to bring her home [February 27, 2002 Editor's Note].

The Miami Herald on February 24 carried a story about a South African woman named Saartjie Baartman that attracted our attention, and, we have learned, has had the attention of many for some period of time.

Before getting into the story, we’d like to highlight what we think is the key issue here, the image of the black person, in this case a woman, in Western art. This is tied into the more macro issue of the way blacks have been portrayed as racially inferior and more specifically, the way black female sexuality has been portrayed as inferior. Those times are changing, but Saartjie's story is worth knowing about, because her story says a great deal about history, recent history at that.

Who is Saartjie Baartman?

She was born on the Gamtoos River in the Eastern Cape in 1789 of a Khoisan family in what is now South Africa. The Khoisans are among southern Africa’s oldest known inhabitants, people who made a major role in shaping South Africa’s past and present. But back in those days, bands of Dutch raiding parties went on horseback to the eastern and northern Cape frontiers to hunt down and exterminate these "bushmen" groups who were considered cattle thieves and a threat to settler society.

"These people moved across this land before any other human being. It was they who named the plants and the trees and the features of this land. . . . There [has been an] explosion of identity . . . [among] people who had spent their whole lives having to hide who they were. These people had been destroyed and now suddenly there [is] light and air."

There was never any light and air for Saartjie. In her late teens, she migrated to Cape Flats near Cape Town where she became a farmer’s slave and lived in a small shack until 1810. That year, she was sold in Cape Town in 1810 at the age of 20 to a British ship’s doctor, William Dunlop, who persuaded her that she could make a great deal of money by displaying her body to Europeans. Dunlop put her on a boat and she ended up in London.

There she was put on display in a building in Picadilly and paraded around naked in circuses, museums, bars and universities. She was most often obliged to walk, stand or sit as her keeper ordered, and told to show off her protruding posterior, an anatomical feature of her semi-nomadic people, and her large genitals, which varied in their appearance from those of Europeans.

Khoisan people anatomically have honey-colored skin and stock their body fats in the buttocks rather than in the thighs and belly. These are natural things for them, but Europeans found them to provide an excuse for stereotyping African blacks in grotesque ways. For example, the British described her genitals as like an apron, "skin that hangs from a turkey’s throat."

Contemporary descriptions of her shows at 225 Piccadilly, Bartholomew Fair and Haymarket in London say Baartman was made to parade naked along a "stage two feet high, along which she was led by her keeper and exhibited like a wild beast, being obliged to walk, stand or sit as he ordered".

There were protests in London for the way Baartman was being treated. The exhibitions took place at a time when the anti- slavery debate was raging in England and Baartman's plight attracted the attention of a young Jamaican, Robert Wedderburn, shown in this portrait, who founded the African Association to campaign against racism in England, and wrote of the horrors of slavery.

Wedderburn is himself an interesting black British radical. He was arrested twice in the early 1800s, once for Sedition for defending a slaves rights to rise up and kill his master, and then a second time for sending among the first revolutionary papers from England to the west Indies. For that, was found guilty of "Blasphemous libel" and served two years in Carlisle jail. He subsequently was released wrote and released his autobiography entitled, The Horrors of Slavery.

Under pressure from his group, the attorney general asked the government to put an end to the circus, saying Baartman was not a free participant.

A London court, however, found that Baartman had entered into a contract with Dunlop, although historian Percival Kirby, who has discovered records of the woman's life in exile, believes she never saw the document.

After four years in London, Sara was handed to a showman of wild animals in Paris, where she was displayed between 1814 and 1815 in a traveling circus, often handled by an animal trainer.

French Research Minister Roger-Gerard Schwartzenberg told the French Senate recently that she was also exhibited before "sages and painters," including George Cuvier, surgeon general to Napoleon Bonaparte, and seen by many as the founder of comparative anatomy in France.

Cuvier, shown here, described Baartman’s movements as having "something brusque and capricious about them that recalled those of monkeys." Cuvier used such descriptions to demonstrate the superiority of the European races. Several "scientific" papers were written about Baartman, using her as proof of the superiority of the white race.Jeremy

Nathan, a South African film producer who is making a feature film on the life of Baartman, says such women excited the attention of the Parisian intelligentsia at the time. Cuvier was at the center of an eminent school of social anthropologists who believed she was the missing link, the highest form of animal life and the lowest form of human life.

Her anatomy even inspired a comic opera in France. Called The Hottentot Venus or Hatred to French Women, the drama encapsulated the complex of racial prejudice and sexual fascination that occupied European perceptions of aboriginal people at the time

Sara Baartman died in Paris in 1816, an impoverished prostitute, a lonely woman, and an alcoholic. She had come to be known as the "Venus Hottentot," which was a derogatory term used to describe "bushmen" of southern Africa.

Instead of providing her a decent burial, Cuvier made a plaster cast of Baartman’s body, dissected her and conserved her organs, including her genitals and brain, in bottles of formaldehyde. Along with her skeleton, shown here, Sara Baartman’s brain and genitals were stored somewhere in a back room of the Musée de l’Homme in Paris Her remains including those in the jars were displayed there until 1976.

Lolita is from Nigeria and at only 26 years of age her testimony seems almost unbelievable. Her story perfectly illustrates some of the hardships thousands of African women go through. Prostitution has reduced her to a drug addict and an alcoholic with aids pulling her into the doomed path of the grim reaper.
Prostitution among African women is snowballing in Europe. Amely-James Bela, a business school graduate, has a long history of humanitarian and community work. She has been fighting to stop the traffic of women and children for prostitution. Her book La prostitution africaine en Occident sounds an alarm on this phenomenon. Afrik-news.com has also decided to follow her example by bringing this trend to light.

“If only I knew what was in store for me here, in this crazy place, this place that so many people admire, this place they all want to come to (…) a place where we, Africans, are considered as good for nothing, slaves who are made to eat human excrement and drink their urine. Some find it normal that sick people, perverts, rich people… use their money and influence to gravely abuse other humans.

They say that we are adults and therefore consenting, but this is not true because no one asked for my consent before throwing me into this hell hole. I was forced and threatened… and if we are adults, what about the kids who find themselves in this milieu? Those people pay a lot to abuse the youngest ones. Poor people do not pay such ludicrous amounts of money for such things, simply because all their money will still not be enough to buy these…

"I am not afraid anymore"

I am disgusted and no more afraid, and by the way, who cares? My days are numbered anyway. My aids is in its final stages. They have more respect for dogs than for us. I know that not all the girls go through what I have been through. But I know what goes on in this milieu and why the girls deny all those horrendous things so as not to fall victim to their anger. Their riches give them the right over our lives… If their drugs, their aids and alcohol had not brought me to my death bed, their filth and the filth of their dogs that I was made to swallow as well as their violence would have done it anyway.

I have prayed to God to forgive me and take me back. No human being can live with what I have in my head. I only have to close my eyes for a few seconds for all the horrors to come rushing back. Everyday and every night I go through the same torture. I need someone to help me end it all, I have no energy in me to even try it. My God! I want just a moment of silence to rest. I just want it over and done with and just go, go, go…

Recruited via the Internet

My troubles began in Lagos. I came across an internet announcement, which said that a businessman was looking for women who wanted to get married for his dating agency. There were photos and stories of happy and successful marriages. Apart from the internet announcement, I also answered to announcements posted in these magazines that we find everywhere now. It all went very fast. The man contacted me and we started communicating via the Internet. He promised me things that no woman would refuse. A dream. In a matter of three months, I had every single paper needed to leave for London. He also gave me the names of persons I had to meet and everything went well. I also had to go to Benin City (a city in Nigeria, ndlr) to collect a small parcel for him. I was a bit taken aback when I realized that the little parcel he was talking about were three young boys between the ages of eight and twelve. Their passports and visas were ready. Everything was ok. I went to see a guy called “wizard” for instructions.

Our trip took us through Ghana where someone provided us with Liberian passports with which we traveled to London. This was to help us obtain refugee status with ease. We left after spending three days in a shantytown in Accra where we were hidden to “avoid being spotted by jealous people who were not as lucky as us!” hmmm… The youngest boy was gripped by fear. He cried a lot, his whole body shook and could not utter a word. His only refuge were my arms and the only moment he left my arms was to allow me to go to the bathroom...

Defenseless children

At the airport, my fiancé and the person who was to collect the children were waiting. The separation was very painful. A lot of force was needed to tear the little boy from me. I never heard of those children again. I followed this man whom I knew nothing about apart from the fact that he called himself “Bryan”. We barely got to his house when the nightmare began. First of all, he wanted us to do it right away. But I told him that I needed some time as it is not too easy to open up to someone I did not know, just like that. But his violent grip made me give in immediately. My first hours on the English soil were marked with rape and violence on somebody’s living room floor. He took a rest, drank whiskey and came back to do those horrible and painful things that I didn’t even know existed, again and again. I thought I was going to die.

I was forced to do what he wanted, I knew only him and he had kept all my papers. After sexually abusing me, he asked me to watch films in which girls were having sex with animals. He said to study what the girls were doing because I was going to do the same soon. He said that my arrival had cost him a lot of money and I was going to have to pay him back. He also said that because he is a very nice man, he would find good business and film contracts and split the money between the two of us. He gave me a little something to give me courage, but not to worry because there was a lot of money to be made. Lots of money. That little something to give me courage was, in fact, drugs. This is how, three weeks after my arrival in England, I became a bestial porn star addicted to drugs and traveling through european capitals; Amsterdam, Berlin, Paris and London, my residence.

Women and animals

Once or twice a week, I was sent to film sets or individual homes to tape these nasty pornographic videos. Sometimes the master and his dogs would join in. It gave me nausea. His wife would look on, amused, while mixing herself cocktails. I took drugs and drunk before doing those scenes, because without getting high on drugs, I just couldn’t do it. These animals in me, their slaver, their hairs, their bad breathe, the scratches from their claws, while obeying their masters who would order them to go slow or use violence with me under them... I cried, I screamed, I prayed for the good lord to take me away. What was I doing? My poor mother would die if she knew. To prevent her from asking too many questions, I sent her money along with carefully staged photographs Bryan and I made.

The worst moment came was when I was made to perform oral sex on these animals. Sex with the animals were unprotected and the man told me that I was not at risk since God had made sure that animals could not impregnate humans. For years I did only that. Litres of animal sperm in my stomach. My body is so filthy that not a single child could possibly be conceived in it. One day, to spice up the scenes, the producer’s wife went and fetched puppies to suck my breasts. It was very painful because they sucked violently as there was no milk. The professionals sell these films across the world while others watch them during parties.

My family lives well and I live with aids

I have to confess that I made a lot of money. I had a house built back home and my family lives well. I pay the school fees for the young ones and I am respected and adored. My family is very proud of me because they know nothing about what I do. Out of greed, I worked more to get more money, which also meant more drugs and alcohol. Sometimes Bryan rented me out to a friend of his in the south of France, because in summer, the arrival of a number of yachts and celebrities at the côte d’azur means a big market for prostitutes and drug dealers. There are all night long orgies and they pay a lot. It is a change from the usual work and brings in a lot of money.

I think that is where I was infected with aids… and because I did not have regular medical check ups the disease was discovered too late. I was abandoned on the beaches of Saint Tropez. Bryan disappeared and changed his address. A prostitute from Poland came to my aid but since she was not able to cater for my drug needs as well as all she was doing for me, she introduced me to an African girl who was also involved in the same line of work, who introduced me to an association that takes care of African women with aids…

My disease is in its terminal stage. I won’t live past thirty. My body is covered with leeches, I am a drug addict, anorexic, alcoholic… I still work as a prostitute, but I am careful not to put my clients, who know nothing about my situation, at risk. I do it to help me buy drugs and alcohol. I take those things to speed things up, you know, my death. The images torture me and it is like a poison killing me in small doses. It is the worst kind of death. I regret so much for coming to Europe. Back home, I would be healthy, married and by now a mother…”

My troubles began in Lagos. I came across an internet announcement, which said that a businessman was looking for women who wanted to get married for his dating agency. There were photos and stories of happy and successful marriages.

Not to be cold harded about the matter but

how did most of these children and women get to the continet of their common opressor????

As the descendant of Africans who had guns pointed at their heads, chains placed on thier anlkes and wrists and necks and dragged onto

ships against thier will, and forced to leave the continet of their birth,

My troubles began in Lagos. I came across an internet announcement, which said that a businessman was looking for women who wanted to get married for his dating agency. There were photos and stories of happy and successful marriages.

Not to be cold harded about the matter but

how did most of these children and women get to the continet of their common opressor????As the descendant of Africans who had guns pointed at their heads, chains placed on thier anlkes and wrists and necks and dragged onto

ships against thier will, and forced to leave the continet of their birth,

I reserve the right to ask that question

Click to expand...

In the video...
One girl said was promised a job in housekeeping or something but when she arrived she was forced into prostitution.

So, these girls aren't being arrested for prostitution but for "working" w/o proper papers? smh

My troubles began in Lagos. I came across an internet announcement, which said that a businessman was looking for women who wanted to get married for his dating agency. There were photos and stories of happy and successful marriages.

Not to be cold harded about the matter but

how did most of these children and women get to the continet of their common opressor????

As the descendant of Africans who had guns pointed at their heads, chains placed on thier anlkes and wrists and necks and dragged onto

ships against thier will, and forced to leave the continet of their birth,

Why would any one deisre to go live and work in or marry the opressor in the opressor's continent based on nothing more then a

Promise???

Do you think someone would volunteer for that if they thought they had other viable options? Iono, poor people have a habit of doing things others can't comprehend...
Is any one familiar with the great expenditure of Arican national dollars converted to Euros to take a flight to any where in Europe????

Who or what is footing the bill for this stuff, and the bill for the children?

umm if some pimp tricked her into coming to Denmark, he probably footed the bill w/ money some other chick made on the streets...

What really seems to be the ish here is why are so many Africans desiring to go live with white folks, away from thier ancestral soil?

What is the population of Black folks who would leave in a minute
their African nation and, if realy provided a job and social services would leave, their people and go live in Europe, If it was completly legit and secure
if they had the chance?

Northern europeans are notorious for sex tourism. Go to S. Africa, Nigeria, Vietnam, Thailand, or China and you will see tons of Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Norweigians, etc...paying to have sex with children. There's even a political party in Europe that is solely for pedophiles. It's disgusting. Pedophiles should be executed.